On 13 November 2025, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation has proclaimed the Judgement No.37-П in the case on the review of the constitutionality of Article 11 of the Federal Law «On the Commissioner for Consumer Rights of Financial Services». The hearing in connection with the complaint of OOO (OOO – similar to LLC) Insurance Company «Sberbank Strakhovanie Zhizni» took place on 17 September 2025.Factual background
Arbitration court satisfied the claims of the Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization «Service for the Support of the Activities of the Financial Ombudsman» to OOO Insurance Company «Sberbank Strakhovanie Zhizni». Higher courts upheld decisions of the arbitration court. The Company was ordered to pay arrears of contributions from financial organizations to the Fund for Financing the Activities of the Financial Ombudsman in the amount of 2 700 000 rubles. In this case to calculate such contributions an increase coefficient of 15.0 established by the decision of the Council of the Financial Ombudsman Service was applied. Such coefficient is provided for cases when a financial organisation does not submit documents at the request of the financial ombudsman (the amount of the contribution for one appeal, taking into account the specified rate, was 450 000 rubles).
Position of the applicant
According to OOO Insurance Company «Sberbank Strakhovanie Zhizni» the contested provision does not comply with Articles 10, 35 (parts 2 and 3), 46 (part 1), 54 (part 2), 55 (part 3), 57, 120 (part 1) and Article 124 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, as it does not establish an essential element mandatory public payment – the amount of the contribution rate payable by financial organizations, the criteria for determining it, or the maximum allowable amount, and also allows the Council of the Financial Commissioner’s Service to assign a punitive function to this contribution, replacing administrative responsibility for failure to comply with the financial commissioner’s requirement to provide explanations, documents, and (or) information related to the consideration of a financial service consumer’s request. However, administrative responsibility for such actions has not been established at the moment. The applicant points out that the contested provision allows to determine the amount of contribution depending on the type of decisions taken by the financial ombudsman, which makes his consideration of complaints not impartial, and the collection of contributions as payments of a private law nature in the course of legal proceedings, rather than proceedings for the collection of mandatory payments and sanctions.
Position of the Court
Constitutional provisions indicate that the courts are an important, but not the only, instrument for protecting rights and freedoms. Other mechanisms may be either extrajudicial, freely chosen instead of going to court, or pre-trial, mandatory to exhaust before going to court.
The Law on the Financial Ombudsman established the position and defined, inter alia, the procedure for the pre-trial resolution of disputes between consumers of financial services and financial institutions. For consumers, this procedure is free of charge, while financial institutions are required to pay contributions, which serve as one of the sources of funding for the Financial Ombudsman's activities. This, however, does not constitute a disproportionate restriction of constitutional rights, given the role of such organizations in the financial services market and their relationships with consumers.
These contributions are intended to support the functioning of the pre-trial dispute resolution mechanism in this area and are not classified as taxes or fees. Moreover, although the purposes of these contributions are similar to those of arbitration fees, a direct link between their amount and the costs of resolving a specific dispute involving the financial institution has not been established. Since the amount of such a contribution is tied to the outcome of the consumer's appeal, and in the absence of other regulations, a maximum contribution rate can only be introduced if the Financial Ombudsman satisfies the consumer's demands.
By granting the Financial Ombudsman Service Council the authority to determine a differentiated contribution rate, the legislator provided a number of organizational and procedural guarantees for this purpose. However, the constitutional requirements for mandatory public payments were not fully taken into account: the disputed regulation does not contain provisions on the procedure for officially publishing decisions on this matter or the means of communicating them to payers. Nor does it contain criteria for rate revisions or rules for challenging these decisions in court, despite their regulatory nature.
Establishing an increased contribution rate for a financial institution's disregard for the mandatory pre-trial dispute resolution procedure does not in itself contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation. However, the regulations under review lack the amount of the contribution charged in such cases, or the criteria for determining it, as well as the provisions allowing a financial institution to prove its impossibility of complying with the financial ombudsman's demands, and for the latter, as well as the court, to reduce the contribution.
The legislator should make necessary changes to legal framework. Until then, the established fees will apply. Instead of the 15.0 coefficient, a coefficient should be applied for the cases where the financial ombudsman satisfies the consumer demands.
The applicant’s cases are subject to review.
Presiding Judge Valery Dmitrievich ZORKIN
Judge Rapporteur Andrey Yurievich BUSHEV